


Wake the Dead

by VileVenom



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Cecil is Mostly Human, M/M, no happy ending, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 07:12:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VileVenom/pseuds/VileVenom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Station Management has a firm policy about how Cecil's health should be handled.</p><p>Replace whatever's broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally much different in my head, but I waited too long to write it.
> 
> Title from 'Wake the Dead' by The Used

Carlos gave pause as his fingers slid deftly under Cecil’s shirt, a slight furrow marring his brow as the pads of his fingers slid across slightly puckered, oddly smooth skin. He gave it little thought, however, as Cecil mewled at him to continue, causing him to loose his train of thought.

It only returned to him once he’d pulled unbuttoned several of the opalescent buttons on the radio hosts’ light purple shirt.

"Cecil…"

"Yes, Carlos?" Cecil squirmed a little as Carlos carefully pushed his shirt to the side, uncovering a good portion of his chest.

"Where did you get all these scars?"

The radio hosts’ body was, quite literally, littered with scars of varying sizes, shapes, and levels of healing. Carlos bit his tongue when he realized how insensitive his question was, especially given how bluntly he’d asked.

"What, these?" Cecil asked, showing no signs of being remotely wounded or worried by Carlos’ question. He traced an especially jagged scar just beside his sternum, clucking his tongue a little. "Well…You know how it is. Station Management wants to make sure I stay at the top of my game, if I’m to continue to be the voice of Night Vale."

Carlos sat back a little at Cecil’s rather odd answer, tilting his head minutely to the side. “What do you mean?”

"I’ve had to have a few bit and bobs replaced over the years, that’s all," Cecil hummed, waving a dismissive hand through the air.

Carlos couldn’t help but stare. When he’d first moved to Night Vale, he’d done a bit of research on each of the more prominent figures in the little desert town. Cecil being one of them. He hadn’t gotten far, given that the Librarians were especially fierce around the town archives, giving him little chance to get into too much detail. He had, however, come across a history of the radio station, and found that a ‘C. Baldwin’ had been hosting the community news show since the inception of public radio in 1922. He’d always thought it was a family name.

"How old are you, Cecil?" Carlos whispered, unconsciously sliding off Cecil’s lap. The radio host sat up, worrying his lower lip with his teeth.

"W-well," Cecil murmured, suffering a sudden surge of self consciousness as he pulled his shirt closed, "I was born in 1895, so I suppose that would make me…one hundred and eighteen this year."

"Jesus," Carlos gasped, shifting to press himself against the arm of the couch furthest from Cecil, tugging a bit at his hair as he gaped openly at the radio host.

"Is-is something wrong, Carlos?" Cecil hazarded to ask, jumping back a little when the scientist suddenly shot up from the couch.

"Wrong? Wrong?! Cecil, you’re over a century old, and don’t look like you’re older than thirty! You-you…how much of you has Station Management replaced?"

Cecil swallowed thickly, pressing his lips together as he mentally tallied how many times he’d been dragged into the basement of the radio station, and how many times he’d emerged with new tattoos and scars adorning his body. “I would have to guess that…Just about everything, aside from, perhaps, anything to do with my outwards appearance, and my vocal cords. I recall them replacing my eyes, once, but the tattoo binding them didn’t take, so they had to put my old ones back in.”

Cecil jumped up from the couch with Carlos looked as though he was about to be sick, his hands instantly moving to support the scientist, though Carlos immediately jerked away from his touch.

"Don’t," Carlos hissed, backing away from Cecil and shaking his head, his eyes fixing on the scars poking out from below the neck line of Cecil’s shirt. "Do you even know what sort of parts they put you back together with?" Carlos’ voice had taken on a rough, ragged edge.

"I…I assume donor parts," Cecil offered, twisting his hands together in front of his chest.

"From the living, or the dead?!" Carlos snapped, his religious upbringing suddenly overpowering his scientific mind, causing him to panic.

"I don’t know?" Cecil offered, shrinking back a bit at Carlos’ outburst.

Carlos begun to pace back and forth, running his fingers through his hair and tugging a little at the strands as he tried to even his breathing back out. He needed to calm down. To think.

"Carlos."

Cecil’s whisper jarred him out of his train of thought, his gaze snapping wild and feral onto the radio host’s face. He took in the tears beginning to form in the corners of Cecil’s eyes, and the way he’d seemed to shrink into himself, despite his otherwise towering height. However, all he could think about was how those tear ducts had probably belonged to someone else once upon a time, and the bone and muscle mass helping him stand was not his own. True enough was the fact that many people had life saving surgeries, replacing defunct body parts with those of donors to help keep them alive, but this. Who knew what Station Management had done to replace Cecil’s unhealthy body parts. Who knew what went on in Night Vale.

"I can’t," Carlos finally spit out, taking another step back from Cecil, waving his hands through the air, as if trying to bat away invisible strings. "I just…I need to think," he breathed, finally turning on his heal and dashing from the radio host’s apartment.

"Carlos," Cecil whimpered, shaking as he slowly fell to his knees. Perhaps his heart was not his own anymore, but he could swear he felt it shatter in his chest all the same.


End file.
